


Smiles

by Hagar



Category: NCIS
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Community: purimgifts, Cooking, Female Friendship, Gen, POV Female Character, Purim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever the occasion, it apparently called for sweets, and Ziva had stocked up on an assortment of them. Attention and sugar: Jenny wasn't about to complain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smiles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariestess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariestess/gifts).



Jenny lay still, eyes closed, and breathed carefully. The air of the small safehouse apartment smelled different, somehow. It still smelled of guns and weapons, like a small apartment that had not been aired _quite_ well enough in a while - winter was bitter in Eastern Europe and it was not quite spring yet – but there was also another scent, incongruous somehow, sweet and –

Jenny’s eyes flew open. She reached for her sweater as she pushed off the blankets, pulled her shoes on and headed for the kitchen.

Her mission partner was, indeed, in the kitchen and she was, indeed, at the stove, and those were not eggs in the pan. Ziva was frying crêpes, and she’d already set the table for two; there were jars of jam on the table that Ziva must have snuck in when she was last on grocery duty, and the local sour cream that Ziva liked so much. Only one cup, though - Ziva’s was by the stove; the woman ran on more coffee than a Marine.

Ziva gave Jenny a quick look. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Jenny replied. “This is fancy. Is it my birthday?”

Ziva lifted the crêpe off the pan with a spatula - no, blintz, it was too thick to be crêpe - and flipped it over. “You tell me.”

“It’s not. Is it yours?”

“No.”

“Any special occasion?”

Ziva eyed her again. Jenny knew that look - Ziva was determining which answer would get the desired response from Jenny. “No.”

It was a lie, but Jenny decided to respond as if she didn’t realize that. She smiled warmly and stepped into the kitchen. “Great.”

 

  


 

The day continued like that. Whatever the occasion, it apparently called for sweets, and Ziva had stocked up on an assortment of them. It felt a bit like being courted, what with the way Ziva looked at her, as if her smiles were the reason for this. With a different mission partner, Jenny might’ve worried, but with this one, not at all. Ziva was Israeli; she would probably be perplexed to discover that this behavior could come across as flirty. She was also exceptionally young even for an Israeli, and nobody got to such a position at that age without being very, very dedicated.

Attention and sugar, no strings attached. Jenny was certainly not going to complain.

Later that evening they were going over their sketches when Ziva said abruptly: “There is a special occasion.”

Jenny looked at her, quirked an eyebrow, and waited.

“Today is Purim.”

“It’s a holiday,” Jenny hazarded a guess.

“Yes,” Ziva acknowledged. Her fingers toys with the corner of a sheet of paper.

“I take it sweets are traditional.”

Ziva shrugged minutely. “It makes people happy to receive sweets. The mitzva is to make each other happy.”

“That’s... sweet.”

Jenny judged right: the weak pun startled Ziva out of her wariness and into something like amusement.

Ziva continued. “Getting drunk is also traditional, but since we are not at our own time -”

Jenny leaned back and considered Ziva carefully. “Tequila,” she declared after a moment. “Cuervo Gold, at the least. Not to get drunk, you don’t do that. But a promise of good tequila at the end of this job, that would make you happy, yes?”

Ziva seemed first surprised, as Jenny guessed at her choice in drink, and then the sort of playful that was the best possible reaction in an Israeli, as Jenny deliberately imitated her syntax.

Ziva’s shoulders straightened and relaxed as she picked up the next sketch. “Yes. That would make me happy indeed.”


End file.
